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An ‘inclusion fluent’ organisation—where inclusion transcends from awareness to full integration and advocacy—not only understands D&I concepts but actively implements and innovates upon them.
We live in an instant gratification world where people expect immediate responses to emails and texts, same-day delivery for online purchases, quick service at drive-thrus, and instantaneous streaming of movies and music. With apps for nearly everything—from ride-sharing to food delivery—patience has become an increasingly rare commodity as technology caters to and reinforces our desire for immediate satisfaction, a concept vividly highlighted with the advent of ChatGPT for those not wanting to be bridled by waiting it offers the hope that not only may we never have to wait again—we might never have to think again.
But when it comes to D&I, if it is lasting benefits you are after waiting and thinking are key ingredients of success. To see it, we may have to take our minds back to an analogue or indeed an agrarian age when people recognised that some good things improve with time, and that patience and persistence often yield richer rewards than immediate gratification. A professional investor told me recently that when it comes to getting returns from investments, the secret is time-in, not timing; similarly fine wines and whiskeys improve in taste and value as they age. The aging process allows them to develop complexity and subtlety that cannot be rushed. For our purposes, we can look at education and learning: Mastery in any field, whether academic, artistic, or technical, requires time and dedication.
Deep understanding and skill come from prolonged study and practice, which cannot be rushed. Diversity and Inclusion mastery is a journey. If it is lasting impact that you are after then the most valuable and enriching approaches require a long-term commitment and patience, offering rewards that quick fixes cannot match. In this article we will think about how to create a long-term D&I strategy for change. Staying with the education metaphor, let us frame this conversation around how a person becomes fluent in a language or discipline. Inclusion fluency, as we define it, is an organisation’s capacity to embed D&I principles into its culture, operations, and strategic objectives seamlessly.
This process evolves from awareness to full integration and advocacy, where fluency transcends mere literacy. A fluent organisation not only understands D&I concepts but actively implements and innovates upon them.
We ascribe seven stages to fluency:
The initial stage in our inclusion fluency is awareness. Drawing a parallel between Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and D&I we identify four critical axes: self-recognition, self-regulation, social awareness, and relationship management. In the context of inclusion, self-recognition includes an unvarnished evaluation of your organisation’s current level of inclusion fluency and literacy.
To do that thoroughly, you will need to accurately assess questions such as: how open, flexible, and adaptable is your culture; what is the commitment level among your key stakeholders; to what extent are different areas or functions receptive to fully inclusive practices; how do people’s social identities affect levels of lived experience in your organisation and bluntly - is the culture you think you have, the one you have got. In addition, you will want to understand the level of inclusion knowledge and practice of staff across all levels in the business, and crucially identify the resistors, bystanders, supporters, and change champions, (typically 10 per cent, 60 per cent, 20 per cent, and 10 per cent, respectively).
The next stage is understanding and commitment, to measure what in our consulting model we call The Why-Fi Signal. Any inclusion journey must be steered by the top of the organisation, senior leaders set the vision for inclusion, and must live the cultural values of the organisation. You will want to engage your c-suite in a dialogue-oriented approach to deepen their understanding of the importance of inclusion. Using the metaphor of the Why-Fi signal will allow you to evaluate their own and your organisation’s commitment to D&I and identify if certain diversity aspects have been prioritised over others. A strong ‘Why-Fi’ signal reflects a unified commitment to D&I, whereas a weak signal could lead to reduced funding and the de-prioritisation of D&I initiatives.
The third and fourth of our seven stages in achieving fluency are education and empowerment and integration and implementation. Having conducted a thoroughgoing analysis of your level of inclusion fluency you will now have a reliable feel for your starting position and flag up any potential obstacles that will need to be overcome. From this, you can begin to tailor your approach to creating a genuinely inclusive environment.
This involves aligning with your core values and ensuring a shared understanding of inclusion, its importance, and its practical implications within your organisation. Without exception this will require some degree of focused up-skilling to ensure that every individual within your organisation experiences genuine inclusion. In our experience working across multiple sectors and territories organisations should plan for a 36-month all employee Inclusion
Fluency curriculum with a structure that progresses from elementary to advanced levels. Each stage of the curriculum should be designed to build upon the previous, ensuring that participants not only learn about D&I but also how to apply it in their personal and professional lives for lasting impact. In the first year, your goal should be to establish a foundation for inclusion through three key interventions for all employees.
Remember- inclusion is simple, but it is not easy. The initial phase should concentrate on dialogues that address the rationale, scope, and practical aspects of inclusion. Ideally, you will have data that has identified major issues and exclusion hotspots, providing real-time data to drive these dialogues.
If in year one you have been able to ensure that everyone is (1) primed for inclusion, i.e., understands the why, what, and how of inclusion (2) recognises what gets in the way and (3) are developing inclusive behaviours, you will have made huge (and measurable) strides and be ready for the next 24 months curriculum which will allow you to start to take deeper dives into diversity, explore issues such as equity and social justice before going on to advanced inclusion, systemic change, sustainability, and leadership and legacy. In Fluency Stage 5 your focus will be on measurement and accountability. You will want to formulate a data-led approach to assessing which areas of your business require additional support in developing and embedding their inclusion.
Utilising outputs from steps one and two you can gather additional data such as workforce demographics, insights from your existing employee surveys and diversity data, as well as implicit sentiment data. This allows you to identify areas within the organisation needing improvement in inclusion fluency by mapping data onto organisational charts or workflows. Understanding the lived experience of your employees at an organisational level is crucial if you aim to take everyone with you, and to tailor your inclusion maturity journey for different audiences, you will need to identify where it hurts, and who’s hurting. Identifying your exclusion hotspots gives basis for the change plan to drive net zero exclusion at your company.
Finally, in Fluency Stages 6 and 7— innovation and leadership and continuous improvement—following the data evaluations and heat-mapping in step three, a collaborative stakeholder mapping activity between us and your key project stakeholders guides our approach to up-skilling sessions in step 4. You can offer targeted support to ‘People Leaders’ who are resistant to D&I principles, helping them adopt a more inclusive mindset in their roles and responsibilities. Alvin Toffler highlighted the importance of not only learning but also unlearning and relearning, underscoring the transformative journey we advocate.
The supporting case study in appendix L demonstrates that measurable improvements occur not merely through inspection but, more importantly, by establishing clear expectations. Alongside the core curriculum do give serious thought to offering an Inclusion Excellence programme to equip your business leaders (People Leaders) with the knowledge and skills needed to champion and implement inclusion excellence. I also recommend that you create a dedicated offering to equip HR professionals and HRBPs with the knowledge, skills, and tools to embed DEIB principles into all HR functions and practices, fostering an inclusive workplace culture.
By supporting HRBPs, it enables them to act as inclusion advocates throughout the business and provide partnering services to their business functions built on a foundation of inclusion fluency. Selected modules from this set will also be utilised to support the up-skilling of People Leaders in areas such as recruitment and progression. In conclusion, while the allure of quick solutions is tempting in our fast-paced world, the journey toward true Diversity and Inclusion is one that demands time, dedication, and a deep, organisational commitment. In this article I hope that I have been able to underscore for you that D&I is not merely a box to be ticked but a strategic endeavour that integrates every facet of an organisation’s operations.
By embracing a long-term, structured approach to D&I— much like learning a language or maturing a fine whiskey—organisations can foster genuine inclusivity that is both sustainable and impactful. As you move forward, it is imperative that your leaders not only initiate but continuously nurture this process, adapting and innovating to ensure that inclusion becomes an intrinsic part of the organisational culture. Only through such persistent and informed efforts can we hope to build workplaces that truly reflect and celebrate the diversity of the world around us.
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